As part of the PRESIDENTS & POTENTATES series:

State of the Union

1948, 124 minutes

In the Presidential Election of 1948, with the Democratic Party divided three ways, no one expected Harry Truman to win­­—certainly not Frank Capra, who was a staunch Republican with a populist streak that showed in his films Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It’s a Wonderful Life. Capra held an idealized vision of what American life and politics should be, and that is no exception in State of the Union, starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Tracy plays a self-made aircraft tycoon (modeled on the 1940 GOP candidate Wendell Wilkie), who is encouraged by his press-baron mistress (a very calculating Angela Lansbury) to run for President. Tracy’s character is a man who speaks his own mind with little patience for crass political maneuvering­­--especially when his handlers want to rein in his estranged wife (Hepburn) to give him more “family appeal.” At turns heartfelt and jaded, this film catches the disenchanted feel of post-war America just before the Cold War and McCarthyism gripped the national psyche.

Please Note--This film is NOT RATED, with smoking, drinking, profanity, infidelity, an illness-induced suicide, hate-mongering and other forms of political grandstanding that seem quaint and wistful in comparison to the current election cycle.